Report: IOC Bribes Begot Bribes
A letter found in the files of an indicted former Utah Olympic official show that some International Olympic Officials (IOC) may have been paid $100,000 to give Nagano, Japan, the 1998 Winter Games, instead of Salt Lake City, a published report said Sunday.
The belief that getting the games required making payoffs coupled with Utah's bitter loss to Nagano in 1998 — Utah officials believed they had better facilities — persuaded Salt Lake officials to embark on their own campaign of cash-for-votes to win the 2002 Olympics, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The Utah cash-for-votes scandal came to light in 1998 and rocked the international Olympic movement.
Salt Lake eventually won the 2002 Games, but back in March 1991, during the bid for the 1998 games, SLOC bid chief Tom Welch received disturbing news from Ireland's Olympic chief in a letter underlined "strictly private and confidential."
Patrick Hickey, quoting Italian Olympic sources, said "certain IOC members have entered into a contract with Nagano to vote for them for a fee of $100,000," the documents show.
On June 14, 1991, the day before Salt Lake lost its first bid, the documents show that Welch fired off an angry letter accusing IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch of trying to sabotage the Salt Lake bid.
"The word is spreading among your colleagues by those close to you, in your name, and being attributed to you personally, that 'We cannot let the Games go to Salt Lake City or the press will eat us alive,'" Welch wrote.
A bitter Welch, who considers himself a scapegoat for the Olympic vote-buying scandal, believes Japan bought the Games in 1991.
"You had a lot of things in play," Welch said Saturday. He accused the Japanese of locking up the IOC vote with a $15 million pledge for an Olympic Museum, then paying a day after the IOC vote.
"There was a concerted effort on the part of Samaranch to see that Japan won, to the point I felt they weren't playing fair," he said.
Welch and his deputy, Dave Johnson, were accused of paying $1 million in cash, gifts and scholarships to IOC members to win the Olympic bid. They were indicted by a grand jury last July on 15 felony counts punishable by 75 years in prison and are awaiting trial.
Welch said the bid-committee documents can help prove he and Johnson did nothing criminally wrong. Both men were indicted last summer on 15 conspiracy, fraud and bribery counts for doling out $1 million in cash, gifts, travel and scholarships to IOC delegates and their families.
The report did not include a response from Nagano officials.